Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
A Woman's Thoughts About Women
(1858)
*********
About the print version:
A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.
By
THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN," &c. &c.
"He that good thinketh, good may do,
And God will help him thereunto:
For was never good work wrought
Without beginning of good thought."
IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS.
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1858. The right of Translation is reserved.
LONDON:
Printed by G. BARCLAY, Castle St. Leicester Sq.
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Page iii
(preface)
PREFACE.
THESE "Thoughts," a portion of which originally appeared in "Chambers'
Journal," are, I wish distinctly to state, only Thoughts. They do not pretend to
solve any problems, to lay down any laws, to decide out of one life's experience
and within the limits of one volume, any of those great questions which have
puzzled generations, and will probably puzzle generations more. They lift the
banner of no party; and assert the opinions of no clique. They do not even
attempt an originality,
Page iv
which, in treating of a subject like the present, would be either dangerous or
impossible.
In this book, therefore, many women will find simply the expression of
what they have themselves, consciously or unconsciously, oftentimes thought; and
the more deeply, perhaps, because it has never come to the surface in words or
writing. Those who do the most, often talk--sometimes think--the least:: yet
thinkers, talkers, and doers, being in earnest, achieve their appointed end. The
thinkers put wisdom into the mouth of the speakers, and both strive together to
animate and counsel the doers. Thus all work harmoniously together; and verily
"Was never good work wrought,
Without beginning of good thought."
Page v
In the motto which I have chosen for its title-page, lies at once the
purpose and preface of this my book. Had it not been planned and completed,
honestly, carefully, solemnly, even fearfully, with a keen sense of all it might
do, or leave undone; and did not I believe it to be in some degree a good book,
likely to effect some good, I would never have written or published it. How much
good it may do, or how little, is not mine either to know, to speculate, or to
decide.
I have written it, I hope, as humbly as conscientiously; and thus I
leave it.
Page 1
A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.
CHAPTER I.
Something to do.
I PREMISE that these thoughts do not concern married women, for whom
there are always plenty to think, and who have generally quite enough to think
of for themselves and those belonging to them. They have cast their lot for good
or ill, have realised in greater or less degree the natural destiny of our sex.
They must find out its comforts, cares, and responsibilities, and make the best
of all. It is the
Page 2
single women, belonging to those supernumerary ranks, which political economists
tell us, are yearly increasing, who most need thinking about.
First, in their early estate, when they have so much in their
possession--youth, bloom, and health giving them that temporary influence over
the other sex which may result, and is meant to result, in a permanent one.
Secondly, when this sovereignty is passing away, the chance of marriage
lessening, or wholly ended, or voluntarily set aside, and the individual making
up her mind to that which, respect for Grandfather Adam and Grandmother Eve must
compel us to admit, is an unnatural condition of being.
Why this undue proportion of single women should almost always result
from over-civilisation, and whether, since society's advance is usually
indicated by the advance, morally and intellectually, of its women--this
progress, by raising women's ideal standard of the "holy es-
Page 3
tate," will not necessarily cause a decline in the very unholy estate which it
is most frequently made--are questions too wide to be entered upon here. We have
only to deal with facts--with a certain acknowledged state of things, perhaps
incapable of remedy, but by no means incapable of amelioration.
But, granted these facts, and leaving to wiser heads the explanation of
them--if indeed there be any--it seems advisable, or at least allowable, that
any woman who has thought a good deal about the matter, should not fear to
express in word--or deed, which is better,--any conclusions, which out of her
own observation and experience she may have arrived at. And looking around upon
the middle classes, which form the staple stock of the community, it appears to
me that the chief canker at the root of women's lives is the want of something
to do.
Herein I refer, as this chapter must be understood especially to refer,
not to those whom ill or
Page 4
good fortune--query, is it not often the latter?--has forced to earn their
bread; but "to young ladies," who have never been brought up to do anything.
Tom, Dick, and Harry, their brothers, has each had it knocked into him from
school-days that he is to do something, to be somebody. Counting-house, shop, or
college, afford him a clear future on which to concentrate all his energies and
aims. He has got the grand pabulum of the human soul--occupation. If any
inherent want in his character, any unlucky combination of circumstances,
nullifies this, what a poor creature the man becomes!--what a dawdling, moping,
sitting-over-the-fire, thumb-twiddling, lazy, ill-tempered animal! And why? "Oh,
poor fellow! 'tis because he has got nothing to do!"
Yet this is precisely the condition of women for a third, a half, often
the whole of their existence.
That Providence ordained it so--made men to work, and women to be
idle--is a doctrine that
Page 5
few will be bold enough to assert openly. Tacitly they do, when they preach up
lovely uselessness, fascinating frivolity, delicious helplessness--all those
polite impertinences and poetical degradations to which the foolish, lazy, or
selfish of our sex are prone to incline an ear, but which any woman of common
sense must repudiate as insulting not only her womanhood but her Creator.
Equally blasphemous, and perhaps even more harmful, is the outcry about
"the equality of the sexes;" the frantic attempt to force women, many of whom
are either ignorant of or unequal for their own duties--into the position and
duties of men. A pretty state of matters would ensue! Who that ever listened for
two hours to the verbose confused inanities of a ladies' committee, would
immediately go and give his vote for a female House of Commons? or who, on the
receipt of a lady's letter of business--I speak of the average--would henceforth
desire to have our
Page 6
courts of justice stocked with matronly lawyers, and our colleges thronged by
"Sweet girl-graduates with their golden hair?"
As for finance, in its various branches--if you pause to consider the
extreme difficulty there always is in balancing Mrs. Smith's housekeeping-book,
or Miss Smith's quarterly allowance, I think, my dear Paternal Smith, you need
not be much afraid lest this loud acclaim for "women's rights" should ever end
in pushing you from your stools, in counting-house, college, or elsewhere.
No; equality of the sexes is not in the nature of things. Man and woman
were made for, and not like one another. One only "right" we have to assert in
common with mankind--and that is as much in our own hands as theirs--the right
of having something to do.
That both sexes were meant to labour, one "by the sweat of his brow,"
the other "in sor-
Page 7
row to bring forth"--and bring up--"children"--cannot I fancy, be questioned.
Nor, when the gradual changes of the civilised world, or some special destiny,
chosen or compelled, have prevented that first, highest, and in earlier times
almost universal lot, does this accidental fate in any way abrogate the
necessity, moral, physical, and mental, for a woman to have occupation in other
forms.
But how few parents ever consider this? Tom, Dick, and Harry, aforesaid,
leave school and plunge into life; "the girls" likewise finish their education,
come home, and stay at home. That is enough. Nobody thinks it needful to waste a
care upon them. Bless them, pretty dears, how sweet they are! papa's nosegay of
beauty to adorn his drawing-room. He delights to give them all they can
desire--clothes, amusements, society; he and mamma together take every domestic
care off their hands; they have abundance of time and nothing to occupy it;
plenty of
Page 8
money, and little use for it; pleasure without end, but not one definite object
of interest or employment; flattery and flummery enough, but no solid food
whatever to satisfy mind or heart--if they happen ...
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